Lucky Bruce?

Could Jay Bruce be the Reds secret weapon from the DL? Bruce has brought out the lineup card the last two games (both wins) and was planning on doing that again tonight.

“We’re 2-for-2 when I bring out the lineup card,” Bruce said. “Tonight will be 3-for-3, hopefully.”

Bruce has a date with Dr. Tim Kremchek on Friday, when he will find out whether he will be cleared to start swinging a bat again.

Starting in late November, Bruce plans to be playing winter ball for a month for the Aguilas club in the Dominican Republic.

“I want to make up for lost time,” said Bruce, who hasn’t played since July 11 because of a broken right wrist. “Hopefully, I will get close to 100 at-bats and try to have some good ones and take that into the off-season and into next season.”

Johnny Cueto had his bullpen session today and not yesterday. Cueto threw 56 pitches and pitching Dick Pole said that he felt fine. Cueto is expected to start one of the games in Monday’s doubleheader vs. the Pirates. It’s the first day he is eligible to come off of the DL.

Reliever Jared Burton said he was OK after he hyperextended his knee trying to field a ball in the ninth inning on Tuesday. Burton was available to pitch on Wednesday.

Corky Miller, who had two RBI singles in his 2009 debut with the Reds on Tuesday, was back behind the plate on Wednesday. Dusty Baker said that Craig Tatum would catch Thursday, because of his familiarity with starter Justin Lehr.

Joey Votto’s seven plate appearances on Tuesday gave him enough PAs to qualify for the NL batting title. However, Votto has an uphill battle. He entered Wednesday batting .311 and ranked 10th in the league. Hanley Ramirez is the leader at .362.

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During last night’s broadcast, Marty and Thom had an interesting discussion regarding Dusty’s choice of Kip Wells to start. The gist was, why not one of the younger pitchers the Reds need to check out for next year? Lord knows, Dusty likes the older players. That was the knock on him when he was hired – he would always favor veterans and not develop, teach or trust the young players. Is this, in fact, the case? Is it not a matter of whether D’s a good or bad manager, but whether he’s just not the right one for this team right now?

Mark, can you review your comments re: Spetember call-ups from last night’s 2nd inning? Who will come up – what’s the relative value of late season Major League experience vs. minor league playoffs. And so forth.

max — see my post from this morning for Jocketty’s take. I get organizations wanting to let their players go through minor lg postseason play. The Twins were like that. Any postseason exposure at any level can’t hurt development.

At same time, the Reds have so many holes to fill for next year you’d like them to send out the prospects and see what they can do. Kip Wells does nothing to help towards the 2010 evaluation.

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